UPDATE 2011:  Food safety legislation passed in 2010 as H.R. 2751 and signed into law on 1/4/2011 as Public Law 111-353, commonly referred to as FSMA, "Food Safety Modernization Act." Read "FDA Acts on Food Safety Bill" [5/20/11].

Update 12/19/10: By unanimous consent on December 19, the Senate approved HR 2751 whose language was replaced by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (formerly S.510 and then included in amended spending bill, H.R. 3082). H.R. 2751 is expected to be up for vote in the House as early as Tuesday, December 21. 
Contact your Representatives now!  [See 12/20/10 action alert]

Oct 13, 2010 - FDA's Ace in the Hole 
Despite there being not even a single report of illness, there have been numerous instances over the past four years where licensed raw milk dairies in New York and Pennsylvania have had their sales suspended due to positive tests  for Listeria monocytogenes (L-mono), a sometimes virulent foodborne pathogen.  

Sep 23, 2010 - S510: Senator Coburn on Underlying Problems

Sep 23, 2010 - S510 Revised: FDA Coming to a Farm Near You
More than ever S510 represents a major threat to the local food movement, states' autonomy to regulate food, and the country's ability to become self-sufficient in food production.

On August 12 the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee released the manager's package for S510", a revised version of the "FDA Food Safety Modernization Act that is 77 pages longer than the version of S510 that passed out of the HELP Committee last November.  [READ MORE] 

Current Legislation
Committee: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Title: Keeping America's Families Safe: Reforming the Food Safety System
Date: Thursday, October 22, 10:00 a.m.
Place: SD-430

Click here to view video and read testimony

HR 2749 - Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009

House Representatives Debate on HR2749

Oppose

Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) video link

Support

Rep Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rules Committee Chairman video link

Bill Sponsor Rep. John Dingell (D- MI) video link

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) video link

Rep. David Scott (D-GA) video link

Executive Summary link

Petition Service - Protect Your Food Supply

Oppose HR 2749 Sign the Petition Here

Food Safety Action Alerts

Oct 30, 2009 - Senate Food Safety Bill

Aug 03, 2009 - Harkin calls for tougher food-safety enforcement

Aug 12, 2009 - Meet with your Senators at the District Offices to Discuss Food Safety!

July 30, 2009 - HR2749 Passes House

July 30, 2009 - HR2749 Fails to Pass but is up for Vote Again Today!

July 29, 2009 - Food Safety Bill Heading for a Vote

June 26, 2009 - HR2749 Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 Update

June 18, 2009 - HR 2749 Update June 17, 2009 Hearing

June 16, 2009 - HR 2749 New Food Safety Bill 

Frequently Asked Questions

HR 2749 FAQs

HR 2749’s Real Impacts: FTCLDF's Response to Consumers’ Union

Read our Response to Consumers' Union

Fact Sheet (courtesy worc.org)

FTCLDF Interviews

Listen to Pete Kennedy's HR 2749 Interview on Michale Olson's Food Chain Radio (July 18, 2009) Click here and "Listen Now" for #643.

Listen to Pete Kennedy's HR 2749 Interview on RadioAmerica (June 18, 2009 at 8 am)

Press & Posts

May 6, 2010 - Food Safety - The Worst of Both Bills (HR 2749 & S 510)

Jan 29, 2010 - Food Safety - Can FDA Be Trusted?

Oct 20, 2009 - HR 2749: What about Food Security

Sep 17, 2009 - Read This Book If You Want To Understand the Food Safety Debate

Sep 02, 2009 - FDA Bill a Bipartisan Victory for Dingell

Aug 14, 2009 - A 'super food agency' might not be so super

Aug 03, 2009 - Politics of the Plate: Casting the Food Safety Net too Wide

Aug 01, 2009 - With House food-safety bill a done deal, questions remain [UPDATED]

July 27, 2009 - Brasher: Food-safety bill meets objections from groups

July 24, 2009 - Small Farmer Warns “HR2749 Will Put Me Out of Business”

July 23, 2009 - Lawmakers and Farmers Clash on Food Safety Bill

July 19, 2009 - Natural Way Guest, Brad Shufflebeam, FTCLDF Member's HR2749 Interview  

July 15, 2009 - Food Safety:  I Don't Want to Play Referee

July 07, 2009 - FDA, USDA to Propose New Guidelines for Food Safety (Update 2)

July 02, 2009 - Food Safety Enhancement Act HR 2749

July 02, 2009 - Food Safety Bill will Shutter Farmers Markets

July 02, 2009 - Coco Gordon: Dangerous chemicals used in food production

June 29, 2009 - HR 2749: Our food supply seized by the Merchants of greed

June 26, 2009 - Food Businesses Face Increased Regulation

June 25, 2009 - Food Safety Rules Face Biggest Change in Years

June 24, 2009 - Food Safety Drive Tough on Smaller Companies

June 23, 2009 - OCA's Position on the New House Food Safety Bill HR 2749 

June 23, 2009 - Open Letter to My Representatives Re: HR 2749 

June 23, 2009 - HR 2749 Food Safety Enhancement Act 

June 23, 2009 - Food Safety Bill HR 2749 Requires Immediate Opposition 

June 22, 2009 - HR 2749:  Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 

June 19, 2009 - Putnam Praises Food Totalitarian Control Bill HR-2749

June 18, 2009 - Food Safety Dance 

June 16, 2009 - Food Safety Sweep 

June 2009 - Your Right to Choose Healthy Food is At Stake Again 

Farmers' and Consumers' Comments

July 14, 2009 - Maria Minno: This bill is a threat to small farms

July 14, 2009 - Steve Bemis, FTCLDF Founding Board Member Addresses HR2749 Concerns with USDA Secretary Vilsack

Joel Salatin Says

* * * * *

Feds threaten farmers markets in Island County - Whidbey News Times
If Bill HR 2749 passes our small farmers, cheese makers and bread bakers may be put out of business. In these challenging economic times our small businesses need all the help they can get. Please, contact your representative and ask ...
Letters to the Editor - Whidbey... - http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/whidbey/wnt/opinion/letters

* * * * *

Ask your representatives and senators to reject HR 2749 and focus instead on cleaning up the H1N1-breeding factory farms.

Corporate America and its government proxies are doing it again, trying to send in another Trojan Horse to paradoxically poison our food instead of making it safer, by specifying food production standards that only maximize profits. Their ideas of food production standards include GMO foods -- genetically mutated organisms -- which have actually been shown to have a lower productivity than heirloom and classically farmed crops.

Also, they can cause digestive and allergic reactions due to novel chemicals in the crops, and big factory farms where animals stew in their own excrement and have to be pumped up with antibiotics and antivirals just to keep them alive.

These huge farms produce highly concentrated sources of pollution that no local environment can absorb. Witness what Smithfield Pork has done to North Carolina watersheds. Google it if you are not aware of the rampant contamination of some of the prime fishing areas like Pamlico Sound and others.

Texas is now the most polluted state due to the methane, ammonia and other noxious emissions, and poorly treated runoff from giant confined animal production operations.

Local and small farmers know how to raise safe foods. They have been doing it since mankind developed a relationship with his crops and livestock.

BRIAN SCHOENWANDT
Great Meadows

* * * * *

Please do not wipe out the small people, it is not them spreading these things.  They are farming and handling food like it has been handled by farmers for hundreds of years.  It is the large corporations that do not care enough to be careful.  

Please, please, think about what you are doing!  No I do not raise and sell, but know plenty who depend on this income.

Sincerely, B.H.

* * * * *

Dear Representative,

Please vote against changes in HR 2749, which would hurt independent New Jersey farmers and reduce our ability to feed ourselves locally and have access to food raised and prepared using normal farming and food production techniques which have sustained us through the middle of the 20th century, when the food production scene began its drastic change toward eliminating home grown and processed food, just when our planet needs home grown and processed food more than ever.

The problem with HR 2749 is that it DOES NOT ADDRESS WHY tainted foods get into the marketplace in the first place ... instead it attempts to license, regulate and penalize food producers for infractions of a set of rules which include rules having nothing to do with wholesome food handling methods ... and HR 2749 regulates in such a heavy-handed manner with penalties that only the largest food producers could shrug off, that more small farmers and food preparers will be driven out of business, if not thrown in jail, and new small operations will not be able to start up.

Food production now, in 2009, is too centralized to be safe and more.  But the corporations involved have no intention of relinquishing their control of food production.  HR 2749 helps those large corporations, while driving out small local food producers ... all in the name of food safety ... while huge outbreaks from tainted foods will continue to happen due to mass production methods, and will continue to be spread nationwide and even across national boundaries.  The solution is to re-enable small food producers rather than let them be squeezed to death by huge corporations.  That way any contamination problem will naturally contained locally and will be rigorous dealt with by the same people who both produce foods and eat their products themselves.

Already under Bush and many previous administrations, big agricultural corporations' power has swollen to the point the American people no longer have access to fresh, locally grown foods and naturally fed livestock.  Everything in the supermarket seems to come from gigantic operations.

Small food producer operations have been systematically destroyed.  With more bills like HR 2749, soon they will no longer exist, and Americans (and the world) will be held by the throat, literally, by a handful of huge food-factory operations which control every aspect of what is produced and by whom.  This is not the America our forefathers built.

The concentration of food production at central locations spreads contamination.  HR 2749 is a blunt sword that would attempt to "sanitize" to FDA standards how huge factory-like operations are run, as well as every little guy in the USA.  Standards cannot overcome the danger of mass production to the public.  The standards required for mass operations to approach a level of safety are not even appropriate for small food producers, in many cases, because the dangers inherent in the large operations are unheard of in the small traditional farm and garden setting.  But mass sanitization efforts like HR 2749b can drive out home-grown food producers, effectively removing all competition to the mass operations.  Then our food supply will be removed from its natural foundation, fully debased in terms of wholesomeness and local pride in quality, and subjected to ever-increasing danger from spread of contamination through mass processing.  Americans need wholesome, locally produced foodstuffs, not pasteurized, homogenized junk food foisted upon them by greedy industrial giants.

Individual families and small farmers, bakers, dairies, etc. together do not have the clout to stop corporate food interests from plowing us all under.

Please be the protector of individuals and small family businesses and save us from yet another attempt by corporations with teams of lobbyists to strangle our food supply and subject us to the inferior products they want us all to have no choice but to eat.  Please vote agains HR 2749 and urge your colleagues to do likewise.

Reference Documents